TNW Sites

Apple buys back $14 billion shares in the two weeks following its fiscal Q1 2014 earnings

Apple has bought back $14 billion worth of its own shares in the two weeks after it announced earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2014, which the market responded to rather negatively, company CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal.

Cook told the WSJ that an 8 percent decline in Apple’s shares on the day after it reported its earnings “surprised” the company, and it wanted to be “aggressive” and “opportunistic.” With the latest buyback, Cook reveals that Apple had already repurchased more than $40 billion of its shares over the past 12 months, as part of its plan to repurchase $60 billion of its own shares.

Apple’s move comes as activist investor Carl Icahn has been pushing for Apple to implement his pretty extreme buyback proposal, saying that based on the company’s current circumstances, an additional $50 billion share repurchase over the course of fiscal year 2014 seems “more than reasonable.”

Last month, Icahn revealed his purchase of an additional $1 billion worth of Apple stock, increasing his holding to $3.6 billion in a bid to motivate the company’s board to increase its buyback program.

Interestingly, Cook also revealed to the WSJ that Apple has bought 21 companies over the past 15 months — seeking to shed some light on how the company has been investing its cash pile.